Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Is this blog on?

I see my last post was six days ago. I've been trying to put something up, but my posting muscle was sprained. Without further adieu, here's Sunday gasbag theater!

David Gregory Describes Republican Position On Medicare As "Bold Leadership"

David "Fluffy" Gregory: So, Ruth Marcus, what wins here, bold leadership on Medicare and the argument that the Democrats won't do something courageous or the Democrats who say, hey, those guys want to take away my medicare?

Ruth Marcus: I regret to inform you that I think it's the latter.

One is tempted to think that neither these gasbags nor their bosses at G.E./The Washington Post Company are much worried about whether they will have Medicare when they get old.

Yes, Ruth, the debt situation is much worse than it was when Clinton was president. We have wars for rich people, tax cuts for rich people, and deregulation/bubble/bust/bailouts for rich people to thank for that. With all of your CONCERN! about the debt, I wonder why you mention none of these?

These people are demented. Medicare must be slashed and anybody who doesn't agree is a coward and a fool. But we are supposed to believe that the Corporate Parties of America are prepared to bring down the global economy out of a surfeit of fiscal rectitude and the corporate and financial elites who own them are too silly to understand it (unlike the very, very savvy Mr Brooks) and are completely without resources to stop it. This is considered to be a serious position.

Culture of Truth posts transcripts of the Sunday morning blowhard festivals (this one is from a week prior to the clip above):

Gregory: the Republicans are right of course -we must end Medicare so are the Democrats going to do it or not?

13 comments:

I remember years ago this cardboard cutout game of Battleship-in-the-toilet, sink 'em with your digested beer. Is the sentiment the same when you watch the talking hairpieces, only that you toss potato chips at the teevee?

RG, I don't actually watch the Sunday morning shows. I read about them at Culture of Truth's place, or Media Matters, etc. In fact, I don't think I've even turned the TV on since before I went to the annual golf debacle in early April.~

Herewith, without further delay, is your weekly dose of political optimism. Do with it what you must.

The Republicans have well and truly painted themselves into a corner. They have voluntarily eliminated any and all room to move. They no longer have control of events, but rather must, with eyes open or shut, depending upon the intelligence and courage of the given individual, march dutifully and methodically off the cliff.

With no options but to move farther and farther to the right, they have destroyed the carefully constructed Overton-based strategy in place since Ronnie Raygun simultaneously embraced supply side economics and space - based X-Ray lasers. They now must charge headlong in to explicitly supporting that which was nothing but an undiscussed 'tragic outgrowth' of their very necessary political and economic agenda.

Now it is them putting unpopular specifics on the table and voting to support them. It is them explicitly denying collective bargaining rights, firing firemen and teachers, closing schools and parks, leaving the poor, disabled and elderly to fend for themselves, all while insisting on the accelerating massive upward transfer of wealth from the desperate poor and collapsing middle class, while simultaneously enacting more draconian and anti democratic assaults on women, gays, latinos and muslims.

At some point, a political party needs to be elected to have an impact. And while they have manipulated the system in order to use money, voting restrictions and gerrymandering to reduce the actual number of votes they need, it is a matter of simple mathematics that you cannot remain a viable national political party with 65% of white males as your committed voting base.

Sheesh, the best way to fix Medicare would be to allow everyone buy into it- Medicare now functions as a way to get older, less healthy folks off the roles of the for-profit insurance companies... why not let young, healthy people buy in to expand the risk pool and improve cash flow?

Mikey, re: Do with it what you must. You know me, (at least the online version of me). I tend to argue. My best hope is that 1) the Republicans completely humiliate themselves and 2) sanity rules the day. This is why I was hoping they'd nominate Trump, and now I'm rooting for Mooselini.

But we already had part 1) in 2008. We still didn't get 2). The problem is that the Overton Wind isn't just being pulled by the right wing, it's being pushed in the same direction by the Democrats as well as the non-Murdoch media.~